Willow's desent
by SlayerWitchCarpenter
Summary: A series of prompt formed chapters that link together to form a Season 6 story. Still in progress, you're welcome to give me prompt words, it would help a lot. :)
1. Colours

This is a Season 6 story written with a chapter per prompt word given to me.

Prompt: Colours

Willow knew Buffy hated her for what she did. She didn't understand why, but she knew she did. God, she could almost taste the hate rolling off Buffy in waves. Buffy forgave everyone else, of course she did, but not Willow. Not the one responsible for the whole spell. Buffy was so okay with everyone else it made Willow feel physically sick to be near any of them while Buffy was there. She hadn't been able to do it before, nothing like it, this was Tara's domain. But now she could feel it. Not empathy. Never empathy.

Not now.

Tendrils of emotions that wrapped round a person and spread to others around them. The warm purple thread that reached out for Giles when he neared Buffy. The orange tendril that was always there reaching out for Xander, even if was on the other side of town. The velvety red and green tendril that wrapped round her own girlfriend, glowing brighter the closer Willow got to Buffy. The black sharp tendril that never reached for her, only blocked her when she neared.

Willow did what Willow knows. She researched. Auras, empaths, anything to do with emotion. Eventually, she stumbled across a colour chart of the tendrils, and explanations of the types. Purple for family, orange for only the closest of friends. Red for protection and green for platonic love, entwined tendrils of two colours proves the strongest bond of all. And then she found the black barbs she was looking for, and there was no surprise there. Hate. Loathing. And fear.

Fear was deep dark blue that was meant to be entwined around the black barbs of hate.

When Willow looked at Tara, she looked at her through a deep dark blue mist that was emanating from Tara in her direction.

Fear.

Tara feared her.

She didn't look at Tara again.

She looked up from the latest piece of demon research, and homed in on her new ability. She almost chocked on blue. Sure, other colours floated around, but none to her. Some yellow sympathy from Xander, a slither of purple from Giles, the small tendrils of deep red love forcing its way through the mist around Tara. Nothing like the cacophony of colours around her from the others to each other.

Willow had to leave. The blue was claustrophobic. It was going to kill her.

She slammed the book shut and stood up. She didn't have to look around to see the eyes on her. She already knew. The Magic Box was almost filled with blue that Willow couldn't see. The door was only slightly visible.

She bolted.

It was only when she came back 2 hours later that she noticed there was no blue in the Magic Box at all. Not after she'd left. So she hung her head and glanced around her, spotting the orange tendril attached to Xander, already knowing where it would take her. To Buffy.


	2. Soul

Prompt: Soul

Willow pushed open the door to her house. It was still her house, her and Tara looked after Dawn in this house for 147 days while Willow perfected the spell. And Buffy had suggested that Willow should move back to her dorm. She said nothing about Tara, just Willow. Tara had even been in the room when Buffy had suggested it, not a single look at Tara or a single comment about her having to leave too. Why would there be, Buffy loves Tara. The kind of love that required two tendrils. She didn't even get that from Tara. Sure, sometimes in that deep red of love she saw the yellow of sympathy. But that's not exactly what she was going for.

She didn't even know why people thought she needed sympathy. She'd done nothing wrong. Giles was wrong. She wasn't weak, she wasn't arrogant, and she wasn't an _amateur_. And she didn't need anyone's sympathy.

She knew deep down that she should care more about the tendrils. She should care that the room was full of blue when she left. But she felt more, inconvenienced. Annoyed. Not because the colour was blue. But because it was in the way.

She pushed into the kitchen, where she found Buffy sitting at the counter, starring into a glass of orange juice. Willow would have laughed at the irony of following the orange coloured tendril to the orange glass if the situation wasn't painful. Buffy didn't physically react to the extra person in the room, but her defences sprung up. Black sharp barbs formed around her, almost like they covered the table themselves.

Not one of them said a word.

Silence ticked on by, and Willow remembered the day she first met Tara. The day of silence and wrenching hearts out of innocents. She buries the memory in her own coloured tendril of dark green. Jealousy. Of herself. Of a time when Tara could be seen without looking through a blue mist. Not that she had this power before, but she was certain it was not like that before. Buffy had no idea what Willow had given up to bring her back, but one of these days, her patience would snap, and Buffy would find out.

Willow pushed off the wall where she was meant and opened the fridge. Orange juice, apple juice, cider, water, blood, milk, Dawn's afternoon milkshake. She fished out a glass of apple juice and closed the fridge door, moving to leave the kitchen. As she neared the door, she felt a barb caress her spine, and more smaller ones threaten to break the skin on her back. Buffy.

"Next time I die, don't bring me back."

Willow riled. She couldn't take the pain from these barbs. She wanted to see Buffy choke in her own baby blue barbs of guilt and dark yellow of shock to wrap around her and recoil over the dark barbs at her back. She turned slowly to face the Slayer, not a hint of blue mist around her. Willow locked eyes with the blonde.

"I couldn't even if I wanted to. I can't give my soul away twice."

And she left, surrounded by an explosion of every colour possible emanated from the Slayer, and she laughed.


	3. Blood Magick

Prompt: Blood magick

By the time Willow made it out of the town, she'd figured out that the tendrils she could see could hurt. She could feel them. Sympathy circled the stomach, and Willow felt sick with it round her. Every now and then when Tara's love broke through her fear, she felt it. Warm. It was warm, warm all over. And she drank it in. Before that blue mist shrouded everything over again. And Buffy. Her black barbs hurt. They felt like they cut her back, small pricks slicing her back, pushing her away from Buffy. And when she last spoke to Buffy, the colour that exploded from her both pushed her away and tried to pull her back. So she ran. And now she was here.

The door to the Magic Box flung open so hard the handle splintered the wall and tore the bell off the top of the door. Rushed footsteps made their way down to the group sat around the table. Giles pushed his glasses back on his face as he eyed the woman stalking towards them.

"Buffy, you should be more care—"

"Not now Giles." Buffy cut him off with a glare. "Where's Will?"

"Willow?" Xander looked up from his book when Buffy entered, taking in her rushed look. Not only the look on her face, but the look on her clothes. Like she'd rushed to get ready. Rushed to get to them. To Will. "She left here like an hour and a half ago."

"Dammit!" Buffy kicked at a chair, splintering the leg and causing the chair to fall to the floor. The onlookers watched their newly-resurrected friend destroy more than just the door.

"Buffy. Maybe we should discuss why Willow's whereabouts are important to you." Giles approached his Slayer carefully, looking at her face for any signs she'd lash out again. When she nodded slowly, Giles motioned for another chair to be given to Buffy and they all sat around the table to listen to her. Buffy took a deep breath, and told them what occurred at her house.

"Good Lord." "What?" "Will…" "Her soul?"

"Yeah… Look, we need to find Will." Buffy stood up and pushed her chair back, stalking over to the counter. "Tara."

"…Yes?" The taller blonde looked through reddened eyes at the shorter blonde. All this time, she'd been wondering why Willow was acting differently, didn't like to get too close, didn't even like to look at her. Now she knew why. And she let it happen, she encouraged Willow to use that darned spell. Willow didn't even let her read it over first. Thinking back to that day, Tara vividly recalled Willow putting blood on her own face, and the magical cuts that opened up all over Willow's arms. Blood magick. She'd used blood magick to get Buffy back. Dark stuff.

"Locating spell. Can you do it?" Buffy asked, her resolve back and her arms folded. She had a friend to find. At first, she hated Willow. She was dragged feet first out of Heaven because of her, back to a burning hell of a town. And she hated her. But now? Willow condemned her own soul to get Buffy's back. How could she hate her for that? Yes, it was stupid, but it was out of pure unconditional love. She suffered in her own guilt. Quietly.

"W-well in theory… I-I'm not sure now Willow's s-soul isn't t-there." Tara looked like she was about to cry when Xander's arms wrapped around her and pulled her up.

"We'll go into the training room. I'll call you when we're done." Xander nodded to Buffy, who nodded back, and she watched as he and Anya helped Tara out of the room, leaving her alone with Giles.

"I called her weak." Buffy spun to face the older man, who'd taken his glasses off his face and rubbed thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose. "I called her weak, arrogant, and an amateur."

"Giles…"

"She's not weak, to give up her own soul… That's the strongest thing I can think of. And no amateur can pull that off." Giles replaced his glasses, sighing and looking at his Slayer, his surrogate daughter, his reason for being back. "Find her, Buffy. She's going to need everyone we can get."

"Buff!" Xander called through the door, and Buffy turned to face the door, and after one more glance back at Giles, she started forward into the training room.

"Where is she?" Buffy demanded in the most gentle voice she could muster.

"Kingman's Bluff." Tara replied, pushing the map away from her and looking up at Buffy.

"There's nothing there, why would she go there?" Buffy asked, looking at the box of weapons and shaking her head. _Soulless, not evil_.

"W-we used to go up there. W-Willow said she felt connected to the magicks up there. I… I couldn't fell any, but she could."

"Then let's go get her."

And they left.


	4. Sympathy

Prompt: Sympathy

'We have to save her, Buffy." The taller blonde's words barely reached Buffy's ears as the girl paced forward in the given direction, her mind set on one thing, everything else was a distraction. They had to get Will, and they had to get a soul back in her. Pronto.

"I know." Buffy could feel a headache coming on, the pounding on her brain taking its toll, perfectly in time to her footfalls, she walked to the beat of her own heart. Her beating heart. The heart that had bled out and withered away before Willow pulled everything back. For a price. God, she should have guessed something had to happen. Giles and Tara always said magic came at a price. She never asked if anything was paid for in return for her. And to find out like that? Part of her wanted to slap Will for that.

"And what are we meant to do when we find her? Convince her home where we strap her down and force a soul down her throat?" That was Xander. "I don't know if anyone remembers but our resident re-souler, doesn't have a soul." That stopped Buffy in her tracks.

The re-souling spell. The one they—Will used to re-soul Angel. She didn't think about the spell itself at all. Did they even have anything they need? For starters they didn't even have Willow. Yeah, they had Tara, but Willow had done it twice, and given her number to some Fred girl in LA lest they ever need Angel re-souled.

"The happiness clause." Giles cursed under his breath, so quiet Buffy was just able to hear it, the others missing it.

"The happiness clause." Buffy repeated, and Xander gasped behind her. From somewhere to her left, Buffy saw Tara raise an eyebrow, so she continued. "A clause put in the re-souling spell for Angelus. If he had even a second of pure happiness, he loses his soul."

"No…" Buffy turned away from Tara, not wanting to look at the other blonde, afraid her own emotions would be reflected on her face. Your two options are soulless-possibly-emotionless-Willow, or has-a-soul-but-can-never-be-happy-Willow. No-one could make that choice.

"Let's keep moving."

"Stop moving!" Willow shouted at the town. Of course, it wasn't to the whole town, it was rather to the cloud of yellow softly approaching her. Sympathy. There can only be one group with that much sympathy.

"So, Buffy tattled." Willow rolled her eyes and turned away, lifting her hands to push the palm of her hands into her temples, blocking the thumping in her head.

_Thump._

_Thump._

_Thu-Thump._

One beat, then another, then a double beat. Over and over and over. It got louder as they got closer, and she found herself edging away from the yellow as it found her, snaking towards her up the bluff.

"Will!" Someone shouted. Who? She didn't care. She just had to stop them. The sympathy hurt. It made her sick. It coiled around her stomach and squeezed. She could taste it.

"Stop!" She commanded, lifting a hand in their direction, still refusing to look at them.

"Willow, sweetheart, please…" She grimaced as she heard her lover talk. How could she look at Tara now Tara found out the truth? Well, half of it. They still didn't know of the tendrils.

"Stop! Stop there!" Willow repeated, backing up in the dirt of the bluff, kicking U dirt as she backed away.

"We're not moving." Xander offered, his hands in a surrender state, to try and calm his long term friend in any way he could. She looked like she was in pain. He didn't know much about souls, but he did know no matter what, you felt pain.

"No! Stop! Stop feeling sorry for me! You're hurting me! Your sympathy is killing me! I can feel it, I can see it, every emotion you have. Love, fondness, family, hate, fear, loathing, sympathy. And they hurt. Stop!"

No one blinked.


End file.
